Labor's rocky road

September 28 2002

Steve Bracks faces a tough journey if Labor is to win the next election. Ewin Hannan sets out 10 reasons why Labor is vulnerable.

1. MAJOR PROJECTS

The decision this week to recast the Eastern Freeway extension project and push back the completion date by two years is the latest setback for a government desperate to be seen as delivering key infrastructure projects.

Premier Steve Bracks and Treasurer John Brumby argue that they do not want to repeat Kennett-era mistakes by entering into arrangements that leave taxpayers exposed. But Labor's record in this area is not impressive.

The proposed airport rail link was abandoned. The government failed to attract promised private-sector funds for the regional fast-rail links. The corporate sector shied away from the government's plan for a third stevedore at the Port of Melbourne. Country rail passenger lines are yet to come to fruition and a black cloud lingers over the planned film and television studios at Docklands. Then, of course, there is Federation Square.

All this as the ALP seeks to avert a public brawl at next month's party conference over how infrastructure should be funded.");document.write("

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2. GAMING

Two days before the AFL Grand Final, Gaming Minister John Pandazopoulos engaged in galling spin to try to distract from disturbing new figures showing punters lost $2.56 billion on poker machines (not including Crown) last financial year.

After relentlessly attacking Jeff Kennett for promoting a casino culture, Labor came to office promising to reduce the state's reliance on gaming revenue. It has failed, with Pandazopoulos resorting to the claim that pokie losses had declined in percentage terms. In fact, they ballooned by $460 million over two years. Gaming reform advocate Tim Costello described the minister's explanation as "Orwellian speak".

"This type of spin is particularly sinister from a Labor government when the growth has come from largely Labor areas containing a number of impoverished, addicted people," he says.

3. THE REDIVISION

To win the election and govern in its own right, Labor requires an extraordinary result for a first-term Victorian government. Under new electoral boundaries to apply at this poll, the ALP effectively needs to win six seats to secure a Lower House majority. Labor approaches the campaign holding 44 seats, including Benalla and Burwood, which it won in byelections months after the 1999 poll. But the redivision has transformed the four Labor-held seats of Narracan, Yan Yean, Geelong and Macedon into notionally Liberal electorates. Cranbourne is the sole Liberal-held seat now notionally Labor.

The ALP won a majority of the two-party preferred vote at the last election. In theory, if people vote the same way at this election, Bracks will lose. An ALP analysis of the redivision shows Bracks needs 15,000 more people to vote Labor just to get the party back to where it was at the 1999 election, when it held 42 out of 88 seats.

4. THE PROCESS KINGS

The state Liberals portray Bracks and his cabinet as a bunch of review-crazy political amateurs incapable of making tough decisions. While a predictable exaggeration, Labor continues to struggle to have its achievements resonate with the electorate. For most of his term in office, Bracks has been Captain Caution, his approach hamstrung by Labor's minority status, an inexperienced ministry that does not bat far down the order, and a politicised public service he refused to purge. After winning office on the back of Kennett's perceived crash-through arrogance, Bracks is open to the charge that he has over-corrected.

"They are vulnerable in that you can take process too far to the point of getting bogged down," says independent MP Susan Davies. "There are times when they become bogged down. That's partly a reflection of the political reality that they don't have the numbers and can't steam ahead with anything. But there are times when they just need to get on with it."

5. HEALTH

The latest AgePoll confirms health as a perennial political negative, with 47 per cent dissatisfied with the government's performance in this key area. Labor has committed substantial extra funds but the Liberals will seek to convince voters the ALP has failed to fix the public hospital system. Recent official figures show waiting lists for elective surgery have fallen to their lowest level in three years. But they also reveal a decline this year in the number of intensive care unit beds and a jump in ambulance bypasses for the first time in six quarters. The number of patients waiting more than 12 hours in an emergency ward before getting a bed rose to 2498 for the month of June, the second-highest monthly reading in three years. That said, Labor insiders assert party research shows an increasing number of voters have confidence in the hospital system.

6. UNIONS

The Liberals are desperate to make industrial relations a key battleground during the election campaign, having spent three years asserting Bracks is controlled by his "union mates". While nurses and police have made significant gains, Bracks has been careful to distance the government from the party's industrial wing, a strategy that has, at times, frustrated Trades Hall and left-wing unions. State Liberal leader Robert Doyle has now joined forces with federal Workplace Relations Minister Tony Abbott to try to promote industrial relations in the construction industry as an election campaign issue. Abbott this week announced that the Building Industry Interim Taskforce would have its headquarters in Melbourne. Transparent politics, but tactics the Liberals hope will bite with voters, particularly in suburban seats.

7. ECONOMIC MANAGEMENT

Much to the disappointment and sometimes anger of many traditional Labor supporters, Bracks and Brumby have been determined to demonstrate their government is neither profligate nor incompetent. Having inherited a generous surplus from the previous government, the question is has Labor got sufficient political bang from its budget buck? The Liberals assert voters see the government spending loads of money without sufficient gains in service delivery. They also claim Labor has an undue reliance on windfall stamp duty gains and gaming revenue, pointing to the ambulance royal commission and the Seal Rocks fiasco (a Kennett contract) as examples of Cain/Kirner-style mismanagement. Robert "Hold On To Your Hats" Doyle will be in a stronger position to critique Labor when he gets around to releasing the opposition's policies.

8. ENVIRONMENT

Labor has struggled to promote its environment credentials, with senior cabinet ministers seemingly more intent on reassuring corporate Melbourne than wooing green-minded voters. "Bracks doesn't have a green bone in his body," one senior government figure said this week. Labor's sales pitch has been hampered by the performance of Environment Minister Sherryl Garbutt, who apparently struggles to be taken seriously by government heavy-hitters and bean-counters. Recent environmental initiatives have been undermined by scepticism that Bracks is moving belatedly to negate a surge in support for the Greens.

9. RURAL AND REGIONAL VICTORIA

Bracks must minimise seat losses in regional and country Victoria, retaining electorates that prior to the last poll were conservative-held. Independent MP Craig Ingram nominates Benalla, Narracan and Gisborne as Labor-held seats that are at risk. Labor's clumsy handling of drought politics, the decision to proceed with Basslink, uncertainty caused by timber industry reforms, community pressure for natural gas connections and a host of infrastructure issues have the potential to hurt the government. "Early on, the government got very positive feedback," Ingram says. "But some of their mid-term agenda caused a bit of heat, and you don't get people saying they are doing a good job anymore."

10. EXPECTATION FACTOR

A recent AgePoll found 71 per cent of voters expected the government to be re-elected. This expectation, driven in part by Labor's apparent strong opinion poll lead over the Liberals, could tempt voters unimpressed or uninspired by the government's record. Before the last election, 81 per cent of voters believed Kennett would win. Enough said.